Starbucks paid the comic for a promotional appearance before it was discovered they were both avoiding paying tax

Caught out: Jimmy apologised after it was found he was avoiding his tax (Photo: Getty/Twitter: Jimmy Carr)

Share

Get daily updates directly to your inbox

Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email

IT looks like the beginning of a brew-tiful friendship...

Comedian Jimmy Carr is pictured shaking hands with Starbucks boss Kris Engskov - the two not yet realising how much they have in common.

The US business chief, a former aide to Bill Clinton, was snapped with Jimmy as he made a promotional appearance for the giant coffee chain in March.

Just three months later the funnyman was forced to make a grovelling apology to fans after it was revealed he was moving his earnings to a fund allowing him to avoid nearly all his tax.

This latest revelation will cause further embarrassment for Starbucks - at the end of a week when they were exposed for paying only £8.6million corporation tax during 14 years of UK trading.

The picture, taken at a Starbucks branch in Soho, central London, is unlikely to make a poster for Mr Engskov's office wall.

He has been head of Starbucks UK since September last year.

Living in a £2.5million flat in the exclusive Notting Hill area of West London, he oversees a company which has paid no corporation at all in the last three years - despite taking £3billion in sales since it set up here in 1998.

A spokesman for the firm said Starbucks, which has 700 cafes across the land, had paid its "fair share of taxes" and fully obeyed our tax laws.

It is claimed the firm, worth £25billion worldwide, avoids taxes by paying fees to other parts of its global business.

Using this method, Starbucks UK effectively runs at a loss. So it is exempt from corporation tax, and it has broken no law by not paying any.

But curiously, sources say Starbucks has told its investors the UK business is making profits. Richard Murphy from Tax Research UK said: "Starbucks is playing the game here. This is tax avoidance. They're doing nothing illegal. That doesn't mean to say it's right, in my opinion."

Campaigner Michael Meacher slammed Starbucks' approach.

He said: "The practice is profoundly against the interests of the countries where they operate and is extremely unfair... They are trying to play the taxman, to game him. It is disgraceful."

Jimmy was branded "morally wrong" by David Cameron after it was revealed he was paying earnings into Jersey-based company K2.

It is a legal method of lowering the amount of tax paid but it prompted Labour MPs to call for him to be stripped of his OBE. Jimmy, 40, took to Twitter to apologise for his avoidance, saying: "I appreciate, as a comedian, people will expect me to 'make light' of this situation but I'm not going to in this statement.

"This is obviously a serious matter. I met with a financial adviser and he said to me, 'Do you want to pay less tax? It's totally legal'. I said 'Yes.' "I now realise I've made a terrible error of judgement, although I've been advised the scheme is entirely legal and has been fully disclosed to HMRC."

Starbucks is the latest company to come under scrutiny for making low tax payments, after Google and Facebook came under similar fire.

Rival Costa recorded £377million sales last year, compared with Starbucks' £398 million, but paid tax of 31 per cent of its profits - £15million.